Season's greetings: Happy Autumn?

I liked this color combination on display at our local Hallmark store.
Liked it enough to pull out my camera and take a picture.
As I did so, I thought about how as a child I would have been very unhappy to have a brown and turquoise themed Christmas.
Christmas just had to be red and green.

Now brown and turquoise looks just right to me.

Each year market research goes about deciding what colors will be the key colors for Christmas a few years later.
Did you know that?
They decide if the green will be lime, or deep pine, if the red will be mango or tutti fruiti pink. If gold, silver or bronze glitter will be in.
Then babbles and card stock. sweaters and dishware are created (mostly in China, because everyone know China is all about Jesus' being born, right?) about a year in advance.

Even as I type this, there is someone in a factory somewhere in China slipping a tiny golden oval sticker proclaiming "Made In China" on something that will just be perfect for Christmas next year.

The year I got married I was tasked at work with putting up something like 24 Christmas trees. Pink ones with ballerina theme, baby blue ones with choo choo trains. Golden ones, bird ones, icy crystal ones.

They were all absolutely gorgeous.

This year I was tasked with decorating two trees in our library. The ornament were varied, a few were gifts to "the tree" (????whateverthatmeans???) the rest were the most common red, blue, green and white balls ever to be seen.

This month I will not, for the first time in my life, be putting up a Christmas tree in my home at all.
Not a fresh one (although I was sorely tempted to get one as I walked past a Christmas tree lot) nor our massive artificial tree either.
Not even our traditional tiny one in our bedroom just for us.

This year we'll holiday with our kids. And as much as I think Tiggie and Hart would like a tree to explore (again!) I'm going to skip putting up our ornaments just for their enjoyment.

I never thought I would not put up a tree. I'll probably succumb to a fresh swag or wreath, just for the fragrance, and I will definitely be putting out some of what I call "Winter" decorations.
But most of that won't be happening until it gets closer to "winter", which by my calendar, means almost three weeks from now.

Right now, we are still enjoying having morning coffee and the newspaper in the autumn splendor of our patio. The bird watching is simply terrific right now.

In the meantime, I want to thank everyone else who IS decorating every inch of their homes and posting their pictures on their blogs.

I love seeing it.
I appreciate it, and your efforts.

Believe me, as the girl who usually decorates EVERYTHING (changing the tooth brushes to match the holiday colors has even been done...) I know that while it is fun to decorate for Christmas, it also can mean a lot hard work.

Especially when it comes time to take it all down again later....

Thank you fellow bloggers. I will leave my computer screen open on my coffee table to some of your Christmas themed blogs and if anyone asks, I'll tell this this year, I'm decorating cyber style.

And if they want to see how I usually decorate, I'll suggest that they travel backwards in time in my blog.

Last December I posted it all: My Christmas china, my mouse collection, angel collection, both the family Christmas tree and our yearly "wedding anniversary" tree.

If you missed seeing it all, feel free to take a look in the archieves. If you saw it before, well, take another look and pretend that I put all of it up again this year.

Do feel free to drop by my place during the holidays, and join me in a cyber cup of tea.

Since I'm not really decorating, I've got plenty of time to visit!